Chapter XIII.—Examples from Among the Heathen, as Well as
from the Church, to Enforce the Foregoing Exhortation.

To this my exhortation, best beloved brother,
there are added even heathenish examples; which have often been set by
ourselves as well (as by others) in evidence, when anything good and
pleasing to God is, even among “strangers,” recognised and
honoured with a testimony. In short, monogamy among the heathen
is so held in highest honour, that even virgins, when legitimately
marrying, have a woman never married but once appointed them as
brideswoman; and if you say that “this is for the sake of
the omen,” of course it is for the sake of a good omen;
again, that in some solemnities and official functions,
single-husbandhood takes the precedence: at all events, the wife
of a Flamen must be but once married, which is the law of the Flamen
(himself) too. For the fact that the chief pontiff himself must
not iterate marriage is, of course, a glory to monogamy. When,
however, Satan affects God’s sacraments, it is a challenge to us;
nay, rather, a cause for blushing, if we are slow to exhibit to God a
continence which some render to the devil, by perpetuity sometimes of
virginity, sometimes of widowhood. We have heard of Vesta’s
virgins, and Juno’s at the town572572 Ægium (Jos.
Scaliger, in Oehler). of Achaia, and
Apollo’s among the Delphians, and Minerva’s and
Diana’s in some places. We have heard, too, of continent
men, and (among others) the priests of the famous Egyptian
bull: women, moreover, (dedicated) to the African Ceres, in whose
honour they even spontaneously abdicate matrimony, and so live to old
age, shunning thenceforward all contact with males, even so much as the
kisses of their sons. The devil, forsooth, has discovered, after
voluptuousness, even a chastity which shall work perdition; that the
guilt may be all the deeper of the Christian who refuses the chastity
which helps to salvation! A testimony to us shall be, too, some
of heathendom’s women, who have won renown for their obstinate
persistence in single-husbandhood: some Dido,573573 But Tertullian overlooks
the fact that both Ovid and Virgil represent her as more than willing
to marry Æneas. [Why should he note the fables of
poets? This testimony of a Carthaginian is historic evidence of
the fact.]
(for instance), who, refugee as she was on alien soil, when she ought
rather to have desired, without any external solicitation, marriage
with a king, did yet, for fear of experiencing a second union, prefer,
contrariwise, to “burn” rather than to “marry;”
or the famous Lucretia, who, albeit it was but once, by force, and
against her will, that she had suffered a strange man, washed her
stained flesh in her own blood, lest she should live, when no longer
single-husbanded in her own esteem! A little more care will
furnish you with more examples from our own (sisters); and those
indeed, superior to the others, inasmuch as it is a greater thing to
live in chastity than to die for it. Easier it is to lay down
your life because you have lost a blessing, than to 58keep by living that for which you would
rather die outright. How many men, therefore, and how many women,
in Ecclesiastical Orders, owe their position to continence, who have
preferred to be wedded to God; who have restored the honour of their
flesh, and who have already dedicated themselves as sons of that
(future) age, by slaying in themselves the concupiscence of lust, and
that whole (propensity) which could not be admitted within
Paradise!574574 Comp. Matt. xxii. 29, 30; Mark xii. 24, 25; Luke
xx. 34–36. Whence it is
presumable that such as shall wish to be received within Paradise,
ought at last to begin to cease from that thing from which Paradise is
intact.

573 But Tertullian overlooks
the fact that both Ovid and Virgil represent her as more than willing
to marry Æneas. [Why should he note the fables of
poets? This testimony of a Carthaginian is historic evidence of
the fact.]